UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Palestinian People

The US-Israeli propaganda machine has not just targeted Palestinian fighters or factions, but has also done its utmost to dehumanize, and thus justify the killing of, Palestinian children too. “Children as young as eight turned into bombers, shooters, stabbers,” reported one Adam Kredo in the Washington Free Beacon, citing a “new report on child terrorists and their enablers.” This is not simply bad journalism, but part of a calculated Israeli campaign aimed at preemptively justifying the killings of children such as Nassir and Mohammed, and hundreds more like them.

It is that same ominous discourse that resulted in the call for genocide made by none other than Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, when she also called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes.”

It gives me no pleasure to write this, but it must be clearly stated for the record: of late, top Israeli political and religious leaders have even incited genocide against the Palestinian people. Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef ruled in March that non-Jewish people, including Palestinians, have no right to live in the country.

… Most worrisome, this racist rhetoric is increasingly influencing the Israeli public, shifting it further and further to the far right. What human rights horrors could this lead to, if left unchecked?

The current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has come to depend on extremist rabbis and the ultra-orthodox community for his political survival. Without their respective support, he is finished. To that end, it’s Netanyahu’s refusal to condemn those who call for genocide of the Palestinians that makes these radicals all the more normal, and ever more dangerous.

According to the concepts of Smotrich, Zohar and Shaked, a Jew from Brooklyn who has never set foot in this country is the legitimate owner of this land, while a Palestinian whose family has lived here for generations is a stranger, living here only by the grace of the Jews. “A Palestinian,” Zohar tells Hecht, “has no right to national self-determination since he doesn’t own the land in this country. Out of decency I want him here as a resident, since he was born here and lives here – I won’t tell him to leave. I’m sorry to say this but they have one major disadvantage – they weren’t born as Jews.”

From this one may assume that even if they all converted, grew side-curls and studied Torah, it would not help. This is the situation with regard to Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers and their children, who are Israeli for all intents and purposes. This is how it was with the Nazis. Later comes apartheid, which could apply under certain circumstances to Arabs who are citizens of Israel. Most Israelis don’t seem worried.

A party with members in Israel’s government has just endorsed a plan to force Palestinians out of their homeland. A prominent Holocaust scholar previously called the plan potentially genocidal and likened the values of its chief proponent to those of the Nazi SS. Yet the European Union, which claims a moral mission to combat extremism, racism and xenophobia, is refusing to condemn it.

Shaked had been invited as part of a regular event, the “Distinguished Lecture Series.”

The university added: “Following their lectures, we invite our guest lecturers to enter into a dialogue with the expert audience and hold a controversial, open discussion within the framework of the academic discourse. These discussions do not represent an identification with our guests’ theses but rather serve as a forum for discussion.”

The university effectively normalizes the view disseminated by Shaked that the slaughter of mothers for the purpose of preventing births in a specific population group – an act that fits precisely within the international legal definition of genocide – is an appropriate topic for “academic discussion.”

Acceptance of such terms for “dialogue” normalizes the genocidal thesis Shaked endorsed.

Shaked posted her appeal for mass murder on Facebook a day before the kidnapping and burning alive of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammad Abu Khdair by fanatical Israeli settlers, and six days before Israel’s 51-day bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 2,200 Palestinians and drew accusations of genocide. Yet Facebook took no action against Shaked’s account.

It’s time that we, as Columbia students, reconsider to whom we give space, and why. Why was Shaked invited to speak in the first place? Why was she given the space to propagate her hatred and calls to genocide?

Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who used Facebook in 2014 to promote genocide against Palestinians, is leading her government’s successful efforts to press Facebook and Google to censor content that her government deems “Palestinian incitement.”

Left-wing activists and BDS supporters gathered outside the Justice ministry, where Shaked opened a conference titled “Democracy and the Rule of Law,” with German Minister of Justice Heiko Maas… “She was talking about genocide, and in Germany, her statements would probably have landed her in jail,” said Iris Hefets of “Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East,” which organized the rally alongside several BDS groups. The organization also sent letters to the heads of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, urging then to reconsider their decision to host a dinner in honor of Shaked.